The Wall

37

“Where are you going?” Nozipho asked.

“To the garage.”

“Why?”

“If I have to spend some time with her under one roof, I want to know who she is,” Thembinkosi said. “Was,” he amended.

“How?”

“We’re going to check her out.” Thembinkosi opened the door to the garage. Switched on the dim light.

“But she’s dead.”

“Of course, she’s dead.” He was already lifting the lid.

“No!”

“Yes!”

“Why?”

“Because we have time. And because we don’t know what we might be able to get out of it.”

“I’m not touching her. It brings bad luck.”

“To whom?”

“Don’t make fun of me.”

Thembinkosi was still holding the freezer lid. “Hold it up!”

Nozipho shook her head.

Thembinkosi shut the chest again. Looked around. Walked straight across the garage. A broom was standing close to the outer garage door. He returned with the broom. Opened the chest again and propped the lid up with the broom handle.

“Did you straighten everything up in the bedroom?” he asked, bending over the freezer.

“Yes. Looks like it did before. What did you think I did? I stuck the empty hangers under the underwear in one of the drawers.”

Thembinkosi thought about the shirts he had stuffed into his briefcase. He’d left the hangers on the rod.

He ran his hands over the body. Pockets. Change. He felt inside the t-shirt pocket. Thought about rigor mortis, which he’d heard about on some crime show. Pulled out a piece of plastic.

“Well?” Nozipho asked.

He looked at the plastic card. Health Care. A name.

“Celeste Rubin.” A number, too. “Maybe she was at the doctor’s this morning.”

“So what…. What are you doing?”

Thembinkosi was halfway in the chest, attempting to flip over the body. He had stuck his hands under the corpse and was tugging at her jeans. However, the body wasn’t cooperating.

“Help me!”

“No,” Nozipho said. “How?” she then asked.

Thembinkosi propped his arms on the edge of the chest. “Let’s pull her out.”

“What? Why would we do that?”

“I want to know what else she has on her.” He leaned back into the freezer and grabbed the corpse’s feet with both hands. “Help me!” The feet were already up on the edge of the freezer. “Come on!”

Nozipho reached into the arctic climate and wrapped both hands around one of her arms. She was pulling with all her strength when the fabric of her dress ripped. She immediately dropped the arm.

“Shit!” she cried. “Look what happened!”

It was only a tiny tear. Thembinkosi had a hard time not laughing while keeping his grip on the feet.

“Just look at that!” Nozipho grumbled. “It’s ruined.”

The tear was at the tightest spot. Nozipho’s slip now peeked through, but if she carried her purse just right, no one would notice it.

“Only whites run around like this,” she said, turning away slightly.

Thembinkosi could tell she was close to tears. Nozipho was always cool, methodical. Together they had robbed from both the rich and the not-so-rich for four years now. She was always up to the challenge and had always stayed composed.

“Wait!” he said, while at the same moment he managed to pull the body the rest of the way out of the chest. Only the shoulders were still resting on the edge. One last effort, a pull, and her head hit the garage floor. It sounded like a piece of china with a crack in it.

Nozipho screamed and now started to sob.

Thembinkosi dropped the corpse’s legs and took his wife into his arms. “Strange day!” he said.

“Shitty day!” she shot back. “I don’t want to do these crappy role-playing games anymore. I want to break in like I learned it from you. Grab the stuff and disappear. Secretly, as it’s supposed to be.”

“Uh-huh. Maybe we need to change our strategy a little.”

They kissed, and then looked back in the freezer. Spinach. Pizza. Shrimp in clear plastic boxes. Meat of all kinds. They glanced at each other. Nozipho was the first one to start laughing. “Corpse on a bed of spinach!” she said, drying her tears.

“White people are cannibals!” Thembinkosi added, snorting with laughter.

They hugged each other again. Kissed.

“I love you,” Thembinkosi said.

“I love you, too,” Nozipho said.

They stayed with their arms around each other for a few more seconds. “We have to get out of here!” Nozipho insisted.

“You’re right! But I still want to see what she has on her.”

Thembinkosi bent down, and for the first time, he examined the body closely. Facial bruising. She’d been hit. Or did that come from the deep freezing? A wound in her hair. She hadn’t been all that old. It was hard to tell when it came to age. However, Ma Jordan, who lived next door to his sister, was 65, and she was clearly older than the woman lying at his feet. She would never get to be 65. Her hair was gray, her face somehow… He thought she looked surprised, but chose not to say anything about it. The bright t-shirt and denim shorts screamed free time, her feet were bare. Thembinkosi flipped over the body. Reached into her back pocket and pulled out an ID.

“Celeste Rubin,” he said again. “She’s 57.” The photo was a few years old. Thembinkosi felt around the other pocket. Empty. “Let’s put her back in.”

“I can’t,” Nozipho declared. “The dress won’t make it.”

“True.”

He turned Celeste onto her back, then he reached under her armpits and slowly straightened up. A person like this is heavy, he thought. And this person was really cold, too. Much colder than she had been just a few minutes ago. He lifted the body over the edge of the freezer and released it. The containers of frozen food clattered.

Thembinkosi shut the chest. “Or would you like to take the shrimp with us? You love them.”

“But not frozen ones. Idiot!” Nozipho reminded him. She was holding the door open that led from the garage to the house.